The Carpentry Work is Complete.

My little Prius, pressed into service as a pickup truck.  Friday, two days ago.  (Every guy should have a real pickup truck!)  13 eight foot long boards that will be the surface of the deck.

First of four sections in place.  Each section will be approximately three feet long and 40 inches wide, and will weigh about 80 pounds.

Last section started.

Attaching the center board of the final section.

Finishing up!

The final result.

Each of the four sections is independently removable.  Right now they are just sitting on the  basin.  I have not decided how, or if, I will attach them to the basin.

The next step is to stain the boards.  Then finish up the surrounding patio.

The Framing is Complete

The framing for the deck is complete.

This phase went surprisingly well.  Once you have used a power screwdriver you will never want to use a hammer and nails again.

Carpentry Work Has Begun

I have started working on the deck that will cover the basin.  

I am continuing to revise the plan, as I understand the problems better.  I have decided to make four separate removable sections, each approximately 3 feet square, rather than two 6 foot long sections.   

I'm starting out with virtually no knowledge of carpentry.  This book has been helpful, but I'm sure a real carpenter would find a lot of flaws in my work.  Fortunately, mistakes with wood are relatively easy to correct.

I have decided to use this checkerboard pattern from the book.  There will be only one row consisting of four squares with the decking boards in alternating directions.

One thing I learned from the book is not to just nail the boards together.  All of the joints will be done with metal fasteners, as shown here.  While the book shows nails being used with the fasteners, I am using screws.  Using an electric drill as a power screwdriver, this goes quickly.  I think the joints will be stronger than if I used nails.  And the screws are much easier to remove when I need to redo something.

Carpentry is a lot more fun than digging!

The Grate

Now it can be told.  The real purpose of this project was to provide a home for the grate, a gift from my daughter Terry.  

The grate weighs about 120 pounds.  Yesterday my son Michael helped me position it on the basin, so that I could check the fit and elevation match to the two patios.  Looks like it is going to work.  The patio on the right is about two inches higher than the top of the grate as currently positioned.  But I think I can reset the pavers on this patio to provide a gradual slope down to the level of the grate.  The top of the grate is about even with the patio behind it.

The top of the grate is only 5 inches above the basin wall.  To make the deck level with the grate I will have to make the deck only 5 inches high.  This means using 2x4's for the joists, rather than 2x6's as planned.  But I think this will be OK, because the joists will be very short compared to joists for a typical deck.

Using 2x4's for the joists will have the side effect of making the deck lighter and easier to raise for inspection and maintenance of the basin.

The Basin is Complete

Contractor Kevin Anderson and his crew were here bright and early this morning to remove the forms from the concrete.  With that, the concrete work is officially finished.

Now it will be up to me to build the removable deck and hook up the pump and the plumbing.  But Kevin has advised me to let the concrete cure for a week before doing any work on it.

Pouring Concrete

This is the big day.  They are pouring the concrete for my catch basin.  Contractor Kevin Anderson has ordered the concrete.  The big truck on the right has the material, not yet mixed.  There are separate compartments for cement, sand, and water.  The material is mixed as it is dispensed from the truck. This avoids the ticking clock of a ready mix truck, which absolutely MUST dispense its wet concrete before it hardens.

The smaller truck on the left has brought a concrete pump.  They will use this to pump the freshly mixed wet cement to the work site in the back yard.

The concrete delivery truck is set up to dispense freshly mixed wet concrete into the pump.

Here is the hose from the pump, delivering wet concrete into the form.  Kevin makes sure that the concrete fills the space in the form, leaving no voids.

Here again, wet concrete is being pumped into the form.

Kevin finishes the top of the walls while more concrete is being pumped into the bottom area.

The finished product.  It took the crew about an hour to pour and finish the concrete.

A lot of things can go wrong when you are working with concrete.  None of them did.  I was glad to have professionals doing the work.

They used three and one half cubic yards of concrete, or about 14175 pounds.  According to my calculations the basin will displace about 175 cubic feet, or 10,472 pounds of water.  This means that it would not float.  More importantly, it should not pop out of the ground if it is empty and the surrounding ground is saturated with water.

The Forms are In Place

I have delegated the concrete work to Kevin Anderson, a contractor who has done several projects for me previously, including an addition to the house.  Kevin arrived at about 8:00 this morning to build the forms, along with two helpers.

There was a cubic yard of crushed concrete base material in the back of this truck.  Kevin and his crew covered the bottom of the hole with the base material, to a depth of six inches or so and packed it down with a tamper.  In the foreground below is the rebar that they will use to reinforce the concrete. This will have to be cut, and some of it bent into an L shape.  Then it will be placed on the bottom and inside the walls of the forms.

Cutting the plywood for the forms.  This is 3/4 inch exterior plywood.

The outside walls of the forms in place.

Rebar in place on the bottom.  The rebar is supported by bricks and tied together with stiff wire.

The completed forms.  You can't see much of it in this picture, but there is a lattice of rebar between the inner and outer walls of the forms, similar what you see on the bottom in the picture above.  There are also L shaped pieces of rebar with a vertical part inside the form and a horizontal part in the bottom.  These will help support the concrete walls against lateral pressure from the surrounding dirt.

The outer walls of the form rest on the base material at the bottom of the hole.  The inner walls are suspended from the 2 by 4s across the top, about four inches above the base material, so that the walls and the bottom will be a continuous piece of concrete.

Ready to pour!